


We were all heroes

by liliaeth



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Gen, POV Minor Character, Zombie Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-20
Updated: 2014-12-20
Packaged: 2018-03-02 09:50:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,853
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2808122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liliaeth/pseuds/liliaeth





	We were all heroes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [V_V_lala](https://archiveofourown.org/users/V_V_lala/gifts).



When life hits you in the face and everything goes to hell, there are two ways to cope with it. Either you stand up tall, look it in the face and say, “you won’t take me”, or you roll over and die. It doesn’t matter if you actually succeed in fighting back, the reality is that if you don’t, you might as well be dead, you just don’t know it yet.

For Gary Kendal, life had been a drudge. he was an only son, loved by his parents. But neither of them ever expected much from him. His Dad worked for the post office, spent all his life driving around the county, stopping here and there for a quick nip and a bit of warmth to keeps his fingers from freezing. In the end he drank one pint too many and ended up missing a turn. 

At least his funeral was well attended. Gary knew he would have liked that.

Mum, she kept to herself. Stayed at home until Dad died, and then she got a job at the market, cleaning the place mornings and evenings. She'd come home, put up her feet and yell at him to clean after himself every once and a while. He tried, but he never did get much further than the dishes.

He wasn't anything special. He wasn't good in school, even if he somehow managed to hang with the popular crowd. Well whatever managed to pass for the popular crowd in a town like Roarton. Sure, he could have left once he graduated. But somehow he never did. Not like Rick, who joined the army as soon as he finished school and couldn't get out of town fast enough. See where that took him. A shiny empty casket, and a letter for his mum and dad, telling them he died a hero. But they couldn't even find his corpse.

Life had dozed on like that, taking whatever jobs he could find, the factory, the post office, he'll he'd take any job he could get his hands on. But Roarton was dead, long before the dead started rising. If Gary had to admit, so was he, just a slow grinding rot, until the day he ended up in a grave alongside his dad, and that's if anyone even bothered to put him to rest. Work, pub, Vicky, one day into another, no change, just dozing through existence.

The Rising was the day he came to life, along with every rotting waste of flesh that ever put its head down after their final breath. At first it felt like a joke. The zombie apocalypse was something nerds like Dean and Lippy went on about. It was something so ridiculous, that you talked about in between two pints of beer, just a bit weirder than talking about who'd win the footy that week. Leaping straight out of videogames or movies. Vicky used to love those flicks, the kind that gave you a good scare, made your heart race just that little bit faster. But you weren't supposed to worry about walking corpses in real life.

Until fantasy became reality, and he was nearly eaten, just coming back from the pub drunk, wet as a skunk, trying to get out of the open as thunder and lightening sounded through the night. He didn't recognize her at first. Mrs Lannister was just some old coot who used to teach maths back at highschool. She hated the look of his face and had flunked him twice. The day she dropped dead having a pint at the pub, was a highday for more than just him. Gary would have liked to say he’d been brave and valiant and took her out before warning the town. But instead he’d ran off screaming, thinking it was the booze making him see her.

He still didn’t know how he’d managed to get home safe. 

He'd woken up in his bed, thinking the night before had been nothing more than a nightmare, swearing to himself that he'd never get pissed that badly ever again.

Only then he got out of bed, put on the radio and all any of them were talking about was the rising of the dead. 

The cities were in chaos, thousands of corpses attacking the living, people thinking it was the end of the the world. He'd turned off the radio and put on the television, the news was nothing but warnings. To stay indoors, to keep safe, to wait for the army to show up and deal with the threat. 

An American station called Fox had managed to call in the socalled 'experts'. George Romero was sitting there, clearly just pulled out of his bed, dumb founded. The man sat there, eyes wide open, as if he thought they were pranking him. Clearly expecting that someone would reveal the joke any time now. 

So did Gary for that matter. They didn’t.

The army kept telling them to wait, that help was coming. But by that time several constables had already died or quit their job. Guess they felt it was more important to protect their own families than their community. Not that Gary could blame them. 

Everyone else did.

Guns started showing up everywhere, and when people didn't have guns, they used other weapons, anything to defend themselves.

It was about two days later, when two rotters ate old Billy Bolton that Bill Macy first stood up during city hall. Macy was just an old coot, retired army, never rose above sergeant and the kind of guy that everyone was scared off, because he might kick the crap out of you if you looked at him the wrong way.

Where everyone else, including Gary himself, sat on their ass, wringing their hands, thinking this was the end, Macy had a plan. It was as if the Rising kickstarted a fire inside of him and he somehow managed to get everyone to believe that they'd be safe as long as they did what Macy told them to do.

He was the only one with a plan, the only one who had a clue what to do, what to say, the only one that even offered any kind of protection. 

Gary wished he could say he’d stepped right up and offered his help. But he hadn’t been. 

It had taken him until his mum got killed by one of them rotters, to actually volunteer. She’d just been walking the dog, said she wasn’t gonna go far, just up the street. It’s not like those rotters were fast. He’d found her and the dog lying there in the ditch when he went to look for her. The dog had had blood on its snout, biting into the rotter that was leaning over Mum, scooping up her brains like they were dessert. Gary had grabbed the closest heavy thing he could find and started hitting it with it, until he was covered in black goo and the thing lay there, looking up at him with its dead white eyes. 

Gary had ran after that, leaving the dog behind. The dog was bitten, maybe infected. He didn't care to check.

The morning after that he went up to Bill Macy and offered his help. No one said a word, he still had the rotter’s blood all over him. They just left him alone. The only one who came up to him was Jem, and all she did was throw him a towel to clean himself up before he got into a uniform. Little fourteen year old Jem Walker, with her red dyed hair and her thousand yard stare. Part of him wondered if she was hoping to die so she’d be with that brother of hers. He kept his mouth shut on that as well. Hoping that she’d at the very least be spared having to do that job.

It was weird being in the HVF, belonging to something greater than themselves. Walking on the street, treated with respect, it was the best days of his life. Him, Lisa, Dean and Jem, forming a unit, clearing out building after building, making sure no one was waiting in the dark, ready to attack. He'd never felt so alive as he did when he thought everything else was already gone and there was nothing left to worry about.

He even had his picture put up at the pub, Pearl would let them drink for free. They were putting their lives on the line for everyone else. It's the leas they were owed. Or so they were told. At times it made him feel like he was faking it. He wasn’t the rough and tumble hero that people saw when they looked at him. But he knew they needed their heroes and he was happy to play the part. 

Anything to hide just how scared he was every time they headed outside, keeping up a front and pretending he didn't want to sit down in a corner and cry. After a while, it even became easier to believe the lie. To be the big strong defender, oh sure, he was no Jem Walker. But when he came home after patrol, Vicky would look at him like he’d actually accomplished something. She even stopped asking him when he was getting a real job. After all, who cared about getting a job, when monsters were out there eating people’s grannies?

And then the ground tumbled out from under him once more. Starting with the sound of planes spreading clouds wherever they went.

The army finally showed up. The HVF had stood there on the side of the road, glaring at the soldier boys in their shiny trucks, and well cared for uniforms. Covered in armor and holding guns that probably didn’t block on you if you didn’t clean them at least once, or even twice a day.

Swooping in like the cavalry, way too late. 

The people hated them on sight. It was glorious.

Gary had stood next to Bill when the guy in charge came up to them, trying to give them their marching orders. As if they didn’t already know what they were supposed to be doing.

Only the army’s orders were different from their own. Suddenly they were supposed to take the rotters alive, herd them into traps and keep them for the army to pick up. Gary had stood there dumbfounded, not a clue what they were planning on. 

Bill Macy had screamed at the bastard, told him just where he could shove his orders. 

Where had they been when Roarton had actually needed them? Where were they now, sitting out safe in their shiny bases, instead of out here with the people that actually fought their war for them?

Gary ordered another pint, barely saying goodbye to the kids, as Lisa and Jem took one of the new recruits for a raiding party to the shop, getting some provisions for the next few weeks. He might as well get drunk. Who knew when the next shock was coming.

it was the end of the world after all.


End file.
